According to the state of art, the washing machines, also known as clothes washers, are basically characterized by the fact of speeding up the clothes washing process by means of the friction produced by the motion which arises inside the washing chamber (tank).
Many washing machines and washing systems are available. As a rule, there are two outstanding systems: the tilting system; and the churning system.
In their basic embodiment, conventional washing machines use water or water steam (which is considered a universal solvent), and a chemical agent, which will make the dirt removal easier, such as: powder soap among others.
As already informed, in the tilting system, the clothes are put inside the tank (or washing chamber) horizontally arranged, which receives the circular motion of the motor by means of a belt and pulley and rotates 360xc2x0 around a axis the mixture water, clothes and chemical agent, follows the circular motion of the tank until the upper part of the aforesaid tank is reached, afterwards, the mixture falls down, pushed downwards by the gravity force, furthering the collision and the friction of the mixture of water and clothes with the surface of the tank, thus enabling the dirt removal.
According to this concept, the clothes are not totally immersed and, thus, require less water as compared with the churning washing system, wherein the clothes are totally immersed, the access to the clothes is through the front part of the machine (cover), therefore the user must stoop, which constitutes an ergonomic problem.
In some washing machines which carry out the tilting washing system, the water is superseded by water steam and the powder soap is superseded by other chemical agents among them, percloretilene, Dry Par, Acqua Clean.
In the churning washing, the mixture water, clothes inside the tank, moves brought by the alternated horizontal motion of the axis with the blades, located at the center of the tank itself.
Thus, the alternated motion of the aforesaid axis with the blades inside the tank is the element responsible for the friction between the water and the clothes and, as a result, for the dirt removal; however, the direct contact between the axis and the blades reduces the useful life of cloth.
In this concept, the clothes are totally immersed, making the water consumption comparatively larger, in addition to the fact that the motor is constantly used so as to enable the alternated horizontal motion of the axis with the blades, thus increasing the amperage and the electricity consumption; in this system, the access to the clothes (cover) is through the upper part of the machine, which is much better from an ergonomic point of view.
In the so-called churning system machines, the building-up of clothes in the lower and upper part of the washing chamber is almost unchanged, which permits a first-rate washing.
This is the basic embodiment of the two most outstanding systems of washing machines.
The present patent is changing in-depth the concept of the conventional washing machines, because they prefer, in substitution to the usual cylindric tanks (or washing chamber), a spherical tank (or washing chamber), from which one or more hub caps can be extracted, which carries out the tilting washing of the clothes, but forth and back, in other words, the washing chamber is forced to rotate in 360xc2x0 both ways at the same time.
There are many operational technical advantages in relation to conventional washing machines.
Among the advantages, we can mention the speeding-up of the washing process and thus the saving of water and electricity, due to the fact that the washing and rinsing are carried out both ways, which originates a stronger friction between the clothes and the water, whereas the centrifugation is carried out around a unique axis.
Another advantage consists in a more effective and efficient washing, if compared to the washing of the machines which use the churning system and the one-way tilting system.
Another advantage, a constructive one, consists in the fact that the access to the clothes (cover) can be through the front part or through the upper part of the machine; besides, the spherical anatomy of the tank enables the self-arrangement of the clothes, making easier the toe-in of the machine as well as its suspension.
All these advantages arise from a totally new concept, according which the tilting of the spherical washing chamber is carried out both ways, in other words, around two axes at the same time.
It must be pointed out that only the tank rotates 360xc2x0, while the clothes upon reaching the upper part of the tank falls again.
So as to obtain the 360-degree turn of the tank around two axes at the same time, some mechanical solutions have been foreseen, among them a set of gears linked to the motor which reproduces the 360-degree turn around a first axis and another set of gears linked to the tank which changes and carries out a 360-degree turn around a second axis.